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Nell Merlino is the mind behind Take Our Daughters and Sons to Work Day and Count Me In for Women’s Economic Independence, a not-for-profit provider of resources to help women expand microbusinesses into million-dollar companies.

Now she’s taking on another big cause: Persuading presidential candidates and other political leaders to pay attention to women business owners. Most women-owned businesses, like small businesses in general, are one-person operations. Though there are more than 9.4 million women-owned businesses in the U.S., according to current estimates, the voices of women business owners tend to get ignored. In WE Decide 2016, a nonprofit online community that extends to social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter, Merlino aims to encourage women entrepreneurs to speak up and have their voices heard. “What they haven’t had enough of is an opportunity to talk about what is important to them,” says Merlino.

WE Decide, which launched in late January, is a collaboration between Personal Black Box, a data collection firm that aims to let individuals get paid for the data they share with brands, and Women Impacting Public Policy, a national nonpartisan public policy organization that advocates for women and minorities in business in the legislative process. Unlike data mining firms, Personal Black lets consumers collect their own data using its technology and opt in to release it to brands for rewards or insights. For instance, consumers might release personal data in order to gain better understanding of their health or participate in research, says Merlino. Merlino is also chair of Personal Black Box Trust, where her focus is data independence and protection.

WE Decide invites women business owners who join it participate in polls on political issues relevant to them in the election and see how their answers compare to those of other entrepreneurial women. Some current ones: Have you ever contributed to a presidential campaign? Over the course of next year, how do you think our economy will do? How certain are you that Social Security will be there for you when you reach 66, the age to receive full benefits? The site also includes information on current presidential candidates and their positions on small business.

WE Decide’s goal is to let candidates know what women business owners want. Its goal is to sell the information gathered in these polls in aggregate, while keeping the polltakers’ information private. Merlino and her team are working on building capacity to enable the polltakers to make money from sharing their data. “The possibility definitely exists,” says Merlino.

Personal Black Box, a for-profit benefit corporation where Merlino is a member of the board, provides the technology for the site. It has raised $5 million in funding, in which Gibralter Ventures, Group’s venture capital group, has played what Merlino describes as a “meaningful” role.

When I spoke with Merlino about a week after the launch, about 500 women had joined the community. “It’s growing every day,” she says. “WIPP is a big organization. This has just gotten going.”

WE Decide recently hosted a Twitter party to spark the conversation. Ultimately, Merlino hopes the online discussions in the community will inspire women business owners to getting involved in political forums beyond the new ones she is creating online.

“Women have stayed way too far out of this,” says Merlino. “At most of the political events I go to in Washington or New York, there still aren’t enough women in business there. They have to be engaged. They’ll be better informed and better able to take advantage of business opportunities. It’s something a lot of women in business have missed out on or have not put on top of their list. I think it’s a big piece of the way for women to move forward."

Story has been updated to provide more information on how Personal Black Box works.